


Numerals

by NovaeLuna



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaeLuna/pseuds/NovaeLuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Over my dead body."</p><p>Fine. Damara wants to ask how many.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numerals

She's not sure where she went wrong in this timeline. Maybe she forgot to push Meulin out of the way when Kurloz fell to the ground by a renegade carapacian attack, or maybe she forgot to make sure that Porrim gave Kankri that beautiful red sweater she's been making for a long time now, because that sweater was supposed to be the only thing preventing that claw from jutting into his rib cage.

It's quiet, something Damara'd never thought a finished timeline would be. It's this version of her's first time. She knows that she's the alpha version that's supposed to complete the time loops. What she doesn't know is how many other alpha timeline Damaras fought their ways and lost with that knowledge in the back of their minds. She breathes in, and shudders. Two loose strands fall out of her bun. She has an impulsive urge to brush them back behind her ears, but she restrains herself.

It's the first time Damara, alpha timeline Number 378, has failed.

She floats by herself in the middle of space for the remainder of forever, until she takes a breath and flings herself back into the cacophony of battle cries and the pitter-patter of blood dripping onto cracked tridents and straight into the dull rainbow streaks across the ground.

And because she is  _the_  alpha, this is also her timeline; there have been alphas, and there have been _the_ alphas, and Damara hopes to the god she knows created her world that Damara is  _that_ alpha.

This is now timeline number 379, and she becomes Damara Number 379.

* * *

She hears this coming for a long time. It might have been unnerving in the beginning, when she would wake up from her own voice pounding in her head, but she's begun to take it all in.

Her name is Damara, and she is  _the_ alpha version. She is Damara Number 7489, with voices from previous timelines echoing inside her head, and because they are all  _the_ alpha version, she listens. She follows their words. She knows when to throw something at Meenah, to wrap her arms around Rufioh's torso, to sigh and allow Porrim to paint her nails, and to listen to Aranea's hours-long lectures. The more she does right, the more the voices in her head disappear. Damara hates speaking in Regular Beforan now, and speaks in East Beforan because she hates how her voice, the multitudes of it, wrap their tongues around the language.

More than she'd like to admit to anyone though, she's scared.

She's scared of what'll happen if she messes up, if she'll be only one of  _the_ alphas. Not the one that'll succeed. Not  _that_ alpha.

Moreso, she's scared of her own futility. At night, she's tormented by her own raspy voice, screeching over and over again with thousands of different bodies which look alike but are different, so different, lamenting over what they did wrong, and what they think is right. Every single night, she's forced to pick out the ones which sound the most unstable, and those are the ones that scare her.

They are the ones who say that they know the true end, but they won't tell her, even if she begs.

Damara Number 7489 wakes up with chills all over her body, next to an empty bed that used to smell like Rufioh, and wraps a scarf made for her by Porrim around her neck. Damara Number 431 tells her to. Damara Number 431 doesn't appear after that again.

And this time, when Damara walks out onto the battleground, Damara Number 7 screams at her to take a step left, Damara Number 378 tells her to push Meulin out of the way when Kurloz is down, Damara Number 63 tells her to turn around before she's stabbed-

* * *

Millions of voices screech in her head, and if she were a different Damara, she would wonder how Meulin lives, with no noise at all resounding through her mind.

And that's what it all is. Noise. Damara Number 900635 whispers about how she couldn't hear anything discernible during the time she was the one with voices in her head. It's only gotten worse for Damara Number 1003002. The voices are annoying. They are useless. If so many before her have failed, then even if she failed, nothing would change.

[うざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざいうざい!]

She clutches her head, snarling, and that's when Meenah says that Damara's lost it.

And Damara Number 1003002 laughs at that and makes some disgusting comment in barely recognizable East Beforan before she dooms them all, by stepping on Meenah's foot storming her way out the room. Meenah's foot is injured, and because of that, they are down a life player for the rest of their short-lived timeline.

* * *

This Damara doesn't even bother to try to hear what number she is. The voices have long ago jumbled all up.

She refuses to call herself a number.

If the others have failed before, it is because they doomed themselves.

Darmara hears only silence. When the voices are all you've heard for all of your life, they don't become noises or sounds anymore.

Damara walks onto a forest path, taking small, elegant steps. She is not sure if the voices have stopped speaking, or if they still continue.

All she knows is that one of the more unstable alphas finally exhales, insanity making the distinction between her voice and all the rest.

"Finally.  _That_ alpha knows." _  
_

And  _that_ alpha snaps Rufioh's neck,  _that_ alpha dooms everyone perfectly, because only  _that_ alpha realizes that she's supposed to do everything the alphas before did.  


_That_ alpha is the last Damara, and she scratches the disc to hear some noise.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> uh this is kind of me just writing my headcanons which aren't exactly uh close to canon so uh i hope it wasnt too bad
> 
> oh uh うざい is "shut up" i hope


End file.
